the nomination of chuck hagel to become the next defense secretary succeeding leon panetta. dana bash is our chief congressional reporter. what is this vote all about? >> reporter: it's to stop the filibuster and allow chuck hagel's nomination to go forward and we expect it to fail. meaning we expect the filibuster to continue. this vote is going to end momentarily. this is happening, republicans s say, because they need more time, that hagel is too controversial to push through so quickly because the armed services committee just approved his nomination at a committee and party line vote a couple of days ago. but democrats say, you know, basically, give me a break. they think that the republicans are trying to delay this in order to look for more information about hagel in order to effectively torpedo his nomination as defense secretary. the white house put out a full-court press from what we think is going to happening in a couple of minutes from happening. i was even told there was a compromise potentially in the works to not have this vote at all if republicans promised